Page 65 of Broken Instrument

“I know. I’ve been going through some shit.”

More. Freaking. Silence.

“Yeah. I’ll take care of it.”

Seriously. This conversation is killing me. I scoot the swivel chair a few inches closer, torn between giving the guy some privacy and ripping the stupid phone from his hands so I can put it on speaker.

“For how long?” Fender’s gaze shoots to me. “Yeah. Get me an extra plane ticket. What’re the dates?”

Silence.

“All right. Yeah. We’ll, uh, we’ll be there.”

He hangs up the phone but stays quiet, blowing out all the pent-up oxygen in his lungs as he stares blankly at the wall.

“So?” I ask.

“It was Hawthorne.”

“You mentioned that.” I smile and touch his knee. “What’d he say?”

“He was calling to see if you were all right. Sammie mentioned what happened last night, and he wanted to know if he could help with pressing charges.”

“Which is a moot point since the guy disappeared.”

“I’m still going to have Sammie and her dad send over the surveillance footage to the police, though I doubt anything will turn up.”

“What else did he say?”

“He mentioned an opportunity.”

“What kind of opportunity?”

“A charity concert.”

“What kind of charity concert?” I prod, shoving him in the shoulder while somehow amused and annoyed by his lack of transparency.

“It’s for kids with cancer.”

“That’s really sweet.”

“Yeah. He wants me to open for Eager Cane.”

“Really?” My eyes widen in surprise. The band is huge. Like, top 100 huge. I touch his cheek and force him to look at me instead of getting lost in the floral painting hanging on the wall opposite of where we’re sitting. “That’s amazing, Fen.”

He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and nods. “Yeah. Just a one-time gig for now, but it’s in LA.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He wants to fly me out to perform.”

“That’s…big, isn’t it?”

I can see his hesitation, his fear, as he forces a smile and squeezes my knee. “Yeah, Hads. It’s big.”

“And? Are you nervous? Excited?”

“I’m…” He shakes his head, probably still trying to wrap his head around the situation. “I’m a lot of things.”

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